A great deal of research has been done in marine robotics to develop sophisticated systems for inspection and maintenance of structures. For example, applications for such a vehicle include inspection of underwater infrastructures, pipelines, dams, oil rig supports, as well as the internal systems of a boiling water nuclear reactor to name a few. Additionally, these inspections require both close-up visual inspection and on-contact inspection to test for external and internal structural flaws. In another application such as port security, careful on contact ultrasound scanning and visual imaging of ship hulls are areas of immense interest to prevent smuggling of contraband. At present, human divers and the US Navy's multi-million dollar marine mammal program, which deploys dolphins, are often required to undertake such risky missions. However, these programs are not easily scalable. To reduce the risk to human divers, and find a scalable solution, considerable effort is currently going into sub-sea robotics. However, typical submerged surface inspection robots are large complex systems that use various combinations of wheels, magnets, and/or vacuum suction to move across a submerged surface. The effort required to control these systems is high, and these systems are often times tethered. Therefore, the resulting inspection process is slow and does not have the discreteness required for various types of detection.